BlueLink9001
Cephalossk= Category:Profile Cephalossk Cephalossk is a Mind Flayer colony that goes for the overall tactic of "Subversion" and "Control", It tends to try and ignore destruction as it wants to focus more time in either driving outward threats insane and slowly turning them into Thralls and more Illithids Flayers through the use of Psionics and their breeding process known as Ceremorphosis Illithid Variants = Mind Flayer - The standard Illithid. They serve as foot soldiers to the Elder Brain, collecting humanoids to use as Thralls, potential new Illithids, or simply as food as Illithids survive on the brains of humanoids. They are capable of communicating telepathically with beings within 120 ft and using pure psionic energy to blast opponents away, Their long usually purple tentacles are used to grasp prey and break open a skull to extract the brain out, casting aside the body as most wealth has nothing to do with a Mind Flayer as it values knowledge above all else. A variant of Mind Flayer referred to as a Mind Flayer Arcanist is similar to a normal Mind Flayer, but is shunned by its peers and upon death won't be added to the Elder Brain to live forever as a part of it. This causes most Arcanists to seek the knowledge on how to become a lich to still be able to become "immortal" as far as they're concerned. Alhoon - The Alhoon are Mind Flayer Archanists that achieve Lichdom through the means of a "Shortcut" This shortcut is referred to as a "Peripet of mind trapping", where a fist-sized container made of Silver, Emerald and Amethyst is used in conjunction of a least 3 Mind Flayer Arcanists with a sacrifice of an equal amount of souls from living victims in a ritual lasting 72 hours of spellcasting and pisonic communication. After the ritual is complete, free-willed Undeath is put onto the Mind Flayers turning them into the Alhoon. Unfortunately for the Alhoon, the undeath lasts for as long as the life of the person sacrificed. I.E, if they sacrifice a 200-year old humanoid, They'll live for 200 years. by repeating the ritual they can reset the clocks for themselves allowing them to live for even longer. Destruction of the Peripet of Mind Trapping sends all souls trapped in it to oblivion, so Alhoon usually work together to make elaborate ways to protect it, along with the ritual site. Taking a Peripet of Mind Trapping will have the Alhoon associated with the peripet be more cautious and less willing to fight the person with it out of fear of accidentally breaking it and sending itself to oblivion along with those who helped make it. The Elder Brain - The leader of a Mind Flayer colony, they are incredibly narcissistic and see themselves and their desires as a top priority. An Elder Brain is massive, towering over the Illithids and knowing all that they do while within 5 miles of them. They are psychic infiltrators, and upon entering a mind, it will corrupt their victim's sense of reality either by sound, sight, feel or touch according to what the Elder Brain's intent is. From across great distances, it will implement suggestions subconsciously, or influence dreams to compel the target towards its goals. A more powerful or resistant mind has the Elder Brain show more dominance and will attempt to control the body of the victim like a puppet. If even this doesn't work, and the mind attacks the Elder Brain, the Elder Brain will unleash a blast of psychic energy crushing the mind, leaving the body a drooling, thoughtless shell. (As to nerf the Elder Brain, these later effects will all fade after a certain amount of time like an hour or so depending on the severity. Also I'll leave it to the RPer to play the controlled against will part as I, the Elder Brain of Cephalossk, feel that it would be most appropriate there.) As well as with whats listed above, when within 5 miles of an elder brain, one will feel like they're being followed even though nobody is there. It can also overhear telepathic conversations, leaving those telepathically communicating to believe they're somehow being eavesdropped on. Anyone that has a psychic link with the elder brain, something the Elder Brain chooses to do, will hear faint incomprehensible voices in the back of their minds. If a Elder Brain is to perish, these effects all end immediately. The Elder Brain can sense when an intelligent creature (Intelligent enough to feel pain and not be absurdly stupid) within the 5 miles, knowing the direction and how smart it is. It can also communicate with several members at once via Telepathy. Ulitharid - These special mind flayers are not under any effect of an Elder Brain. Illithids will see these special variants survival more important than their own. These variants have 6 tentacles instead of the usual 4, and are more psychically potent than a normal mind flayer. Elder Brains have one of two responses to the rise of an Ulitharid, Some understand that the Ulitharid are essential in restoring the empire they lost, as Ulitharids can become Elder Brains, and become the Elder Brains most favoured assistant. Others see them as rivals for power and are dealt with to ensure that the Elder Brain stays in control. (I personally am the former. Some Elder Brains are too stupid to realize that our empire is the most important thing and should be our larger priority.) The moment a Ulitharid finds living with an Elder Brain insufferable, they take half the Mind Flayers there and leave to go establish a new base of operations, usually 5 miles or more away from another elder brain. In order to become a elder brain, a Ulitharid kills itself by using a device called an Extractor Staff and its body dissolves into ichor, which is used to transform the terrain around it into a brine pool, where tadpoles and the Elder Brain reside. Tadpole - The larva state of a Mind Flayer. These things live in Brine Pools and during Ceremorphosis, enter a Thrall's skull and devour its brain, and become its new brain, transforming the body into a mind flayer with slight memories of what it used to be. This doesn't hinder the Mind Flayer at all it seems, though some can become obsessed over such memories. Mindwitness - A telepathic hub formed when a creature called a Beholder is subjected to ceremorphosis. a Mindwitness has the traits of a beholder, but serves more as just an extension cable of the telepathic abilities of a Elder Brain, adding 600 ft to its range and the ability to communicate a message with 7 other creatures telepathically. The trait of its days as a beholder are something referred to as an "eye ray". This ray can do many different things, but for a mindwitness it has 6 possibilities. One makes the target more weak, and is referred to as a Aversion Ray, another induces a target with fear, called a Fear Ray, another delivers a psychic blast into a target hurting their psyche and delivering a headache or a migraine depending on the severity This ray is called a Psychic Ray. Another ray makes a target overall less agile and more slow, called a Slow ray, Yet another is the Stunning ray, which leaves the target babbling incoherently while being too dazed to move. The Final ray a Mindwitness can unleash is its Telekenetic ray, allowing it to move objects 30 feet in any direction, as long as said object is 300 or less pounds. It can exert fine control over this ray to do simple things like use a weapon like a sword or open a container. Neothelid - This abomination is what happens after a Elder Brain is killed and the brine pool is left unattended. Every Tadpole in the pool kills and devours each other until only one remains, it grows to enormous sizes, towering over even an Elder brain, being at LEAST 80ft in length, these disgusting creatures know only their instinct to kill. They are seen as an extreme abominations to Mind Flayers, as mature tadpoles are usually killed if no thralls are capable to become an Illithid. A mature tadpole is a few inches in length and any larger is to be killed. Neothelids kill prey by spraying tissue-dissolving enzymes from their tentacle ducts. This reduces the victim to a puddle of slime leaving only the brain unharmed. The Neothelid, like Illithids devour brains, but have no actual knowledge of their connection to Ithillids so they attack them just as likely as anything else. They also can also use psionic powers but have zero idea how they work, so if they use them it's by sheer accident. Elder Brains and Ulitharids can't tell when a Neothelid is nearby due to their intelligence being too low, and Neothelids can sense lifeforms like Elder Brains and Ulitharids. Culture and History Illithids behave as a hive-mind being controlled by an Elder Brain. Some Mind Flayers are capable of going against this mindset and become renegades, usually trying to bring their empire back without a Elder Brain and rule in its stead. A Mind Flayer colony is full of complex caverns full of several chambers. The largest areas are the Elder Brain Chamber and the Resting Pool rooms. Illithds have certain relationships with other races. Duergars and Gith are two examples of species that wish to see the Illithids extinction, while most others are simply thralls or food for them. Most of what Illithids do is try to gather thralls and make illithids in order to increase their numbers. Next is their quest for knowing everything there is to know. Their libraries are extensive full of incomprehensible knowledge written in a unique language of the Mind Flayers called Quailth. Quailh is a language similar to binary but many Mind-Flayers cannot grasp the meaning of what it reads, as its etched into nonliving material with Psionic energies emitting from the tentacles, will drive most people mad. Alignment Illithids do what is for the greater good in their eyes, and listen willfully and carefully to what the Elder Brain says, as the elder brain expects sheer perfection of what it asks. Illithids will do trade, but care not for material wealths such as money or items, Magic Items are treated as baubles to them and seldom are used. What they usually will ask for in return is knowledge that they do not already know. This is usually about biological life forms or other natural things, not just magic tricks or locations to treasure unless said treasure holds something of intellectual value. This pushes Mind Flayers to a Lawful-Evil side, as alliances with Mind Flayers usually don't last long because they will throw you to the side once you lose value to them. Breeding Method Ceremorphosis is how the Illithid breed, It's assumed that the genders of the Illithid are what they were before turning into the brain-devouring horrors they now are. The process is when a tadpole is put onto a Thrall's face and the tadpole enters through either the nostrils, eyes, ears, or other large oriphises that are on the humanoid thrall. The Tadpole will then proceed to make its way to the inside of the skull of the thrall. After getting there, the tadpole will devour the thrall's brain, gaining all the memories and the like of the thrall, and will replace the brain, transforming the thrall into a brand new Illithid. There is no way to reverse the process of Ceremorphosis. Important Characters Aurangual - A Mind Flayer seemingly against the Elder Brain, Currently trying to leave the Colony. The Elder Brain - A So-far unnamed entity that controls the whole faction. |-|Gallery= Logo rp Mind Flayer.png|Cephalossk's flag/logo/icon. Ceremorphosis-volo.png|Ceremorphosis in-process, featuring a tadpole. Alhoon-5e.png|An Alhoon Elder brain-5e.jpg|An Elder Brain Mindwitness-5e.jpg|An Mindwitness Neothelid-5e.jpg|A Repulsive Neothelid Ulitharid-5e.jpg|An Ulitharid Mind_flayer_-_5E.jpg|A standard Mind Flayer. Mind Flayer Colony.jpg|A Typical Mind Flayer Colony lay-out.